The room is thick with tension, the air pressing down on you like a storm about to break. You stand chest-to-chest with Mattheo, your breath uneven, hands trembling at your sides. His words still burn in your mind, sharp and impossible to ignore.

"You are wrong," you snap, voice raw with disbelief. "How could you even say that? Theo would—he would never—"

A slow, deliberate clap echoes from the doorway, followed by a soft, mocking laugh. The sound slithers down your spine like ice.

"Never what?"

Theodore.

He stands in the doorway, his figure half-cast in shadow, arms crossed over his chest. His uniform is slightly rumpled, his tie loosened like he hasn’t bothered to care. But it’s his eyes that freeze you in place.

"Never betray you?" he continues, stepping forward with unhurried ease. There’s something almost lazy in his movements, like this conversation is more of an inconvenience than anything else.

"Do you really think I loved you?"

The breath you were holding slips from your lungs, leaving you hollow.

Mattheo shifts beside you, tense, watching, but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. This is between you and Theodore now.

Theo tilts his head, eyes flicking over your face as if waiting for the moment it truly sinks in. He clicks his tongue, shaking his head like he’s genuinely disappointed in you.

"C’mon," he drawls, voice laced with amusement. "I thought you were smarter than that."

Something inside you cracks.

The memories hit you all at once: the way his fingers used to trace patterns on your skin, the quiet moments where he looked at you like you were the only person in the world, the whispered words that once felt so real. Lies. All of it.

You stare at him, searching for something—anything—that could tell you this is some kind of cruel joke. But there’s nothing. Just the same smirk, the same distant eyes, the same stranger wearing the face of someone you once loved.

Theo never loved you.

And maybe, just maybe, he never even pretended to.